I didn't want to kiss you goodbye — that was the trouble — I wanted to kiss you good night — and there's a lot of difference.

The only decent bone in her body was mine.

When things are going well, I like to have people to share it with. I've been alone in troubled times, and I don't mind that. Some things have to be endured alone. As Hemingway said, the human being is strong in all the broken places.

You see I'm trying in all my stories to get the feeling of the actual life across, not just to depict life, or criticize it, but to actually make it alive.

Good dialogue is not real speech-it's the illusion of real speech.

About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

You know you’re writing well when you're throwing good stuff into the wastebasket.